The present disclosure relates to image forming apparatuses and image forming methods and particularly relates to a technique for allowing an image forming apparatus to perform print processing of a print job stored in an external memory.
There have recently been image forming apparatuses equipped with external terminals to which external memories, such as a USB (universal serial bus) memory, can be connected. In such an image forming apparatus, a user previously stores, in an external memory, data for use in print processing on the image forming apparatus and then connects the external memory to an external terminal of the image forming apparatus to allow the image forming apparatus to read the data from the external memory. In this manner, print processing of the data can be performed on the image forming apparatus.
Furthermore, various techniques for a general image forming apparatus are proposed in which, when an autorun program for allowing such an image forming apparatus to automatically perform print processing is previously stored in an external memory, the image forming apparatus automatically performs, upon connection of the external memory to an external terminal of the apparatus, the print processing according to the autorun program read by the image forming apparatus. For example, there is a first technique of extracting only unprinted data in a USB memory and automatically performing print processing using this unprinted data. For another example, there is a second technique in which an image forming apparatus detects a file from a USB memory connected thereto, analyzes the detected file to identify a language and acquire print settings (printing conditions) from the file, and performs print processing under the acquired printing conditions.